People ask me all the time for advice on laptops, drives me nuts. It's like buying shoes for them. Latitude is definitely worth considering. If I have an owner or manger that travels a lot I'll go with the Carbon X1.

I Had one HP G42 some years ago, found it very frustrating because of the lack of performance, I think it was the HDD's fault.

Had a sony vaio, great machine! I used to run several VM's on that, ubuntu server, other versions of Windows etc. But I think there is no more out there to buy =/.

Now I have one macbook pro 13' mid 2012, the best built quality I've ever seen, great performance (after upgrading from hdd to ssd of course!) I run the lastest OS X + vmware fusion for Windows, and virtualbox to run Linux and Windows Server sometimes. I use for it for development and personal use.

At work, I use a dell latitude e6440, also another great brand, and so far I'm really happy with this notebook.

I only use the dell for work, so I can't tell you much more.. only thing I can tell is, if apple didn't exist, I would have a Dell.

If you're looking to learn for an atmosphere that will have servers involved, I would suggest getting a desktop you can tinker with too. You could put Redhat/Centos and Windows Server OSes on it and you could set up stuff like RAID that you would be using on a server. You've probably already thought of this, but I thought I'd bring it up in case you hadn't.

Just choose what you like (screen size and type - IPS, TN, storage capacity, CPU, GPU, don't forget about LAN speed and WiFi speed), then choose manufacturer, then check that it doesn't have a lot of issues (overheating is the worst problem, IMO) and buy it. You could choose few models, view it in store how it looks and make your choice. The Internet isn't only a community, it's a huge market for marketing staff.

I suggest to list all your needs, then write the minimum and critical parts. It won't take too much time, but it worth it, instead of reading hundreads of review and ask people. Don't allow anyone to make a choice for you.

I am probably going to get rocks thrown at me for this, but my brand of choice is Acer. I am also a fan of Lenovo. I do a lot of hardware repairs and the two brands that seem to have the worst builds are Dell and HP.

Definitely going to second the recommendation for the ThinkPad W540! We also have the new W550s, which is a mobile workstation and ultrabook. Of course, with a $2,000 budget, you have a lot of flexibility. Let me know if you have any specific questions about Lenovo, I'd be happy to answer them!

﻿Hey Brandon! Now that it has been about a week, have you narrowed down your specs on what exactly you’re looking for? As many have mentioned, it’s hard for us to tell you what will work best for you. I think it’s important to think about which brands you’ve used, why you have or have not liked using them, and the features that matter most to you. Personally, I’d recommend an ultrabook. I like the idea of being about to use my machine as a laptop and a tablet, depending on what task I’m using it for. If you are open to 2-in1s, I’d suggest the Dell Latitude ultrabooks– the E7440 fits within your budget and comes with 4 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD. You should also check out the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix. Let us know where you’re at with this! Hope this thread can help you sort through the massive selection out there. :)

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